When it comes to monetizing blogs, many bloggers start with Google Adsense. Why? Because it’s easy to sign up and even easier to integrate into your blog.

You simply copy the code Google gives you into a WordPress theme file or paste it into a text widget in your blogs sidebar. Within a matter of minutes, your blog is showing relevant ads to your visitors. Now it’s time to make money right?

Unfortunately, there is a problem with this procedure that may hurt your Adsense earnings.

The Problem – Not Everyone Should See Ads

If you followed the procedure above, your Adsense advertisements will display to anyone that visitors your blog (including yourself). Since the Adsense code is coded into your theme or sidebar, it will automatically show up on any post or page that includes your sidebar or the theme file you edited (such as single.php).

Why is this a bad thing?

Because not everyone clicks on ads. Matter of fact, the majority of your visitors will not click on ANY (it’s the sad truth). This will cause your CTR (click-thru-rate) to drop very quickly since you are getting impressions from all your visitors but not a lot of clicks. This is what leads to very low paying clicks.

Plus your daily visitors are going to develop ad blindness and they will not even notice the advertisements after a few days. Even worse, some of your daily readers may become irritated by the ads and stop visiting your blog.

So who should see the ads?

For the most part, only people from search engines should see Adsense ads. Why? Because they are looking for something specific. When they find your blog in the search engines, they click on it because they think it might have what they are looking for.

If it does, perfect. If not, they are going to continue on their way looking for it. So why not show them some Adsense ads that are highly relevant to what they are searching for? They have just as much incentive to click on an ad as they do the back button. This is the perfect situation!

So how do you set your ads to only display to certain people? We’ll give you a few options below.

Simple Solutions To Control Your Ads

Luckily, WordPress has a few plugins available that will do exactly what we want to do. Here’s a breakdown of the two we recommend and what makes them different from one another:

1. WhyDoWork.com Adsense

This is by far the easiest solution to controlling your Google Adsense ads. The plugin is a piece of cake to install and has a very simple administration panel to control it. For the most part, all you need to do is paste your Adsense code into one of the code sections of the plugin.

Then, you simple choose where to display that code section in your blog posts. You can choose between a bunch of options such as the top, middle, or bottom. The nice thing about this plugin is that you don’t have to add your Adsense code to any WordPress theme files. The plugin automatically does it for you.

The best feature this plugin has is the ability to filter which posts the ads will display on. You can set it so that your ads only show on posts older than a certain amount of days. This works great since most people viewing your old posts are finding them in the search engines. Plus it keeps the ads off of your recent posts so your daily visitors do not see them.

• Get The Plugin

2. No Adverts For Friends

This plugin is similar to WhyDoWork, only it has a lot more features. The downside is that it is much more difficult to setup and requires some technical skills. However, once you have it setup it works perfectly. It’s the best solution of the two if you have the time to get it configured.

The reason this plugin is the best solution is because you can filter ads for many things, not just based on how old a post is. You can set it up so that anyone who has left a comment on your blog will not see ads. You can also set it so that anyone from the search engines will automatically see your ads.

This plugin works with a variety of code besides Google Adsense. So it’s a great way to control what your visitors are seeing based on a bunch of different parameters.

• Get The Plugin

Regardless of the method you use, we highly suggest testing your ads. Every blog is unique and will see different results for each method used. The more you test, the more information you will have to optimize your blog for the best earnings.

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1. How Do Blogs Make Money?
2. Flickr Photo Album Plugin
3. On Page SEO For Blogs

Therefore, I will like to share three indirect ways to make money from your blog.

1. Freelance Writing

One of the first things I started doing after I started blogging, was freelancing writing. There are literally tons of jobs available writing for all different types of sources. Some companies hire article writers, while others are looking for actual bloggers.

There are many companies willing to pay for a blogger to write posts on their behalf. This is a great way to make money working from home. My advice is to use your blog as a portfolio since it contains a lot of writing samples. You would be surprised how effective this is, especially if your blog is related to the topics would be writing about.

2. Blog Consulting

One of my favorite things to do apart from blogging is consulting. I enjoy helping others learn more about blogging and what they can do to make their efforts pay off. A lot of people already have blogs up and running, but they are stuck on what to do to take them to the next level.

If you have a somewhat popular blog with some decent traffic, you can easily use it as a means of getting some blog consulting work. Many jobs I get our a result of my traffic numbers for my personal blog. The key is to have a popular Alexa rank and Google PageRank so that it shows you know what you are doing.

3. Setting Up Blogs

Every day, I come across wanted ads for blog setups. A lot of people want to start blogging, but they are not sure how to install one. This is where you step in. Installing WordPress blogs is pretty simple after you have done it a few times and can easily be repeated.

I have set blogs up for both individuals and large companies. They key is to charge competitive rates and use the blog as a way to show off your blogging knowledge.

Give Them A Try

So try these out and see if they work for you. These techniques are great for making money while you are waiting for your blog to take off. The fact that they can be done from home is the best part of all.

Related posts:

1. Do You Blog For Fun Or Money?
2. How Do Blogs Make Money?
3. 5 Reasons You’re Not Making Money

Believe it or not, there are a lot of different ways to monetize blogs. Every day, new options open up for bloggers to make some extra money. I thought I would share some of the most popular ways to monetize your blog below.

Advertising

The easiest and most popular way for bloggers to make money is through advertising. Many companies prefer to buy advertising space on blogs instead of other sources because it gives them a strong online presence. It also gives them a way to target a new group of people.

There are many types of advertisements, including banner ads and text links. One of the most popular ad networks is Google Adsense. This is especially popular with new bloggers because it can be setup in a matter of minutes. There is no need to way for advertisers because Google will automatically display ads related to your content.

Sponsorship

Much like advertising, sponsorship is another medium for bloggers to make money from. Instead of selling advertisers to various clients, you simply allow one company to sponsor your entire blog. The company then pays you a certain amount (often monthly) to keep the blog running.

Sponsorship has becoming more and more popular, especially in certain niches. The key to getting sponsored is having a blog that sticks out in its category.

Affiliate Programs

For many bloggers, affiliate programs are the number one source of income. So you might be wondering, what is an affiliate program? Basically, affiliates allow you to sell their products for a commission. If Bill writes a book on blogging, he would then allow me to sell it on my blog and give me 50% of the sales.

The nice thing about selling affiliate products is the fact that you do not need to create products yourself. You can simply put an advertisement up on your blog or review a product and make some money.

Popular affiliate programs include Commission Junction, Clickbank, and Amazon.

Consulting

One way I personally use to make money from blogging is consulting. Many companies, big and small, are looking for people that know how to blog. They want questions answered about what they need to get started and how to be successful.

Having a popular blog will no doubt give you the edge when it comes to getting consulting jobs. The key is to show a good understanding of your niche.

Freelance Writing

Freelance writing is another great way to make some extra income from your blog. Many companies are looking for writers on all sorts of topics. Since blogging is a form of writing, it can be used as a portfolio.

There are also many companies looking to hire paid bloggers. They will pay bloggers either monthly or per post, to write content and submit it to their blogs. If a company is looking for writers or bloggers based on your blogs topic, you may have an inside edge on getting the job.

Selling Them

One last way to make money from blogs is by selling them. Many people are looking to purchase blogs that have already been setup. Once you setup a few blogs, it becomes much easier to launch new ones. Each month, you could setup a blog and get it ready to go. Then auction it off for a profit on sites such as Sitepoint.

This works as a great side income, especially if your blog is new and isn’t generating enough income for you to live off of.

Many Choices To Choose From

So there are some of the most popular ways to make money blogging. As you can see, there are many choices when it comes to monetizing your blog. These techniques can be used by themselves or together to form more than one source of income.

Related posts:

1. 3 Indirect Ways To Make Money From Your Blog
2. Do You Blog For Fun Or Money?
3. 5 Reasons You’re Not Making Money